


Susurration

by NaughtyPastryChef



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Partial Mind Control, Pre-Canon, Snakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:01:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27079252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaughtyPastryChef/pseuds/NaughtyPastryChef
Summary: Sam and Dean, staying in a remote cabin in the Maine woods, stumble upon a clearing in the woods and a small stone shack. At first, they think nothing of it, but after some shared nightmares and Sam vanishing with no memory of it, they start to realize that the remote little town isn't so peaceful after all.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 7
Kudos: 40
Collections: Supernatural Eldritch Bang





	Susurration

**Author's Note:**

> This was fun to write, and I think it's creepy... I hop you all do too. Much love and applause for my artist DWImpala67 and my eternal devotion to soy_em67 for the beta and making this readable. (Seriously, shes an even better writer than she is a beta, pease go check her out)

[Art Masterpost](https://dwimpala21.livejournal.com/5924.html)

“Dad this place is-” 

Sam’s whine got cut off by Dean shoving a duffle bag into his arms. Sam opened his mouth to keep taking, but Dean shot him a glare before he cut his eyes to the cabin they would be staying in.

“Go,” Dean said, nothing more and Sam closed his mouth and stomped off the way only a 17 year old could. Dean let out a breath and turned to grab another bag without meeting John’s eye, because they both knew John caught the entire exchange.

The one room cabin wasn’t the roughest place they’d ever stayed, but it was a far cry from the apartment in Ohio they’d just left. John followed Dean as he marched inside the cabin with his arms around his own duffel bag. No one spoke until Dean had put the bag down on the bare floor of the cabin.

“I know it’s rough, but it’s four walls and a roof. No electricity but it’s summer, you should be out all day and not inside anyway. There’s a couple lanterns, one battery and one propane, a propane stove and a camp shower and toilet around the back,” John offered the boys and watched, amused, as Dean glared Sam into keeping his mouth shut.

“I’m not gonna be gone long, couple days, maybe even a week. Just a Selkie on the coast, a few hours away. Me and Bobby will have it done and I’ll be back to pick you up in no time.” He handed a small roll of bills to Dean, since Sam was still sulking and the silence went heavy and awkward very quickly.

“Okay. You guys know the drill. No people back to camp. PT at sunup. Look at this as a chance to work on survival skills. I’m not leaving a list of things I want checked off and done cause you two are both old enough to decide that for yourselves.” He turned and headed to the door. At the exit, John paused, shoulders tight.

“Dean, take care of your brother.” He yanked the door open and headed back to his truck, eyes looking longingly at the Impala he’d gifted Dean on his 16th birthday. He missed that car. He fired up the truck and headed back down the long, dirt road into town working on convincing himself that his boys would be okay. They’d done this countless times before, so why did he have a bad feeling about this time?

\-------------------------------------------------------------

Dean looked around the tiny space and sighed aloud. Not just this once but more and more often he was noticing that maybe Sam was right to talk back. This pace was the pitts and he didn’t want to deal with any of it. His eyes landed on Sammy who was sitting on the floor, curled around the duffel holding their bedrolls and staring up at him.

“Okay, let’s get the bedrolls and sleeping bags set up and the lanterns out and check them- we don’t wanna have to be fucking aorund with them when dark falls.” He paused and watched as Sam’s head gave the smallest twitch of a nod. “Then it’ll have been long enough that we can head down into town for supplies. Junk food tonight Sammy, we can splurge. If there’s a town pool hall or some place I can hustle some money we can splurge more than once but count on it being just tonight, okay?”

Sam twitched his head in a nod again but Dean, feeling like the worlds biggest asshole, put his hands on his hips and looked down. “I’m gonna need verbal confirmation Sammy.”

Sam scrambled to his feet, duffel bag in his left hand while his right gave a sloppy and somehow sarcastic salute. “Sir, yes, sir.”

With a smile and a kick aimed at the kid’s shoes, Dean headed off looking for the lanterns and extra propane his dad mentioned while Sam set up the sleeping area. There wasn’t enough space for any kind of breathing room inside the cabin but with Dean at one side and Sam at the other, Dean kept feeling the need to flick his eyes up and check on Sam.

They headed down the long dirt road that connected town and their creepy little cabin, with the windows rolled down to catch the Maine sea breeze that seemed to be everywhere in the state, regardless of whether you could see the ocean or not.

Town was underwhelming. A general store with two gas pumps and a hotdog and icecream stand next to it. Dean sighed as he surreptitiously fingered the roll of money his dad gave them and tried to figure if it would last two weeks, or if he and Sammy would have to make a trek to the next town over to find a pool game.

“Alright, you know the drill. Essentials first; I still have a huge stash of triple-a, double-a and c batteries but we need a couple D cause that’s what powers the lantern and your boombox. Canned goods, frozen goods. Granola. Stuff that’ll last a week or more. Once that’s done we’ll see what we have left to splurge with.” Sam smiled and flashed his dimples at Dean before he headed into the general store.

“Kid is gonna be the death of me.” Before Dean followed he scanned his eyes around the small intersection. Even for a small town like this, he would’ve expected more traffic at 3pm on a Saturday. He didn’t see another car or person anywhere in the area. There wasn’t even another car at the store. He pursed his lips and scanned the building that held the store. It was certainly big enough to hold an apartment above the store part of it. He shrugged and headed inside, ignoring his gut.  _ It’s Maine,  _ he told himself,  _ just creepy Maine stuff. Like Stpehen King and fake horror stories. _

There was no clerk inside the store. There was a sign on the cash register **“Back in Fifteen minutes. Please don’t steal. Leave money here”** and a small lock box that Sam could have picked when he was six. Sam looked at him over the pile of food and batteries in his hands.

“I’m not doing the math to count it all up and add tax. I’ll leave enough so that neither of us feels like we stole nothin.”

“Thanks Dean.” Sammy doesn’t remember all the five finger discounted items that Dean brought home to them when they were smaller and ran out of money. Sam doesn’t ever need to know. Shaking the thought out of his head, Dean carefully counted forty dollars off his roll of bills, and shoved Sam towards the door.

“One more quick run through before we head back out to the cabin.” Dean gestured and Sam pouted but did as he was told. Dean looked around behind the register for liquor bottles but found nothing. He grabbed a pack of smokes, a six pack of canadian beer because it was all they had, and two handfuls of candy bars that he shoved into a bag and headed out to the car. He knew he hadn’t left enough money to cover everything but Dean stopped feeling bad about taking things from people when they had and he didn’t a long time ago.

“Here ya go Sammy.” He grabbed a pack of peanut m and m’s from the bag and handed them over with a flourish.

“Thanks Dean.” Sam tore open the bag and poured some into his mouth immediately; at seventeen Sam was always growing, always hungry. Dean took a closer look at the food that Sam grabbed and realized that they’d have to trek back into town in two days for more. He held his sigh. At least he hadn’t paid full price.

“This pace is fuckin weird man. No people, anywhere. No cars. No cashier in the fuckin store? I mean… anyone could walk in and take everything. Something about this place is giving me the creeps \,Sammy,” Dean opined aloud as he pulled the car onto the road and they leisurely made their way back to the sad little cabin.

“It’s just a small town, Dean. Anywhere that doesn’t have a couple bars and a strip club on main street gives you the creeps.” Sam sassed at him and it made Dean so happy that he could giggle, but he didn’t because he was a grown man, a hunter, and hunters didn’t giggle. But he did smile and get all warm inside. When Sam was feeling good enough to sass, Dean knew everything would work itself out.

“What, and you don’t feel like having a drink? Playing some pool? Seeing a naked lady or two?” Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw Sam flush a deep pink across his cheeks.  _ Ahh to be seventeen and get hard at the mention of a naked lady,  _ Dean thought but he didn’t tease Sam about that. He couldn’t tease Sam about that and they both knew why and they didn’t talk about it.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

“RISE AND SHINE SAMMY” Dean yelled into Sam’s face and Sam jacknifed up off the bedroll and banged his head into Dean’s. They both fell back with a wince.

“S’what you get for waking me up like that. Rude.” Sam fell back into his sleeping bag and pulled it up over his face.

“C’mon Sammy. We gotta get up and burn off all that candy and beer we had last night. You know he’ll know if we skip PT. He always knows.”

Sam sighed inside his little sleeping bag cocoon and tried not to wince as the smell of his morning breath surrounded him. He threw the covers off and climbed to his feet, shivering in the cool, morning air.

“Isn’t it still July? Why is it cold?” He shivered as he gathered up his running clothes and stepped behind the only cover in the room, a small bookcase, to drop his sleep pants and pull on his boxer-briefs.

“Far as I can figure, Sammy, it’s cause we’re in the mountains. That beer we drank last night was Canadian so we’re way far north too.” 

Sam pulled a shirt over his head and felt his hair stand on end with static.

“Two beers. I had two beers to your four, what are you getting out of it to keep bringing it up?” Sam looked over at Dean, who was bent over at the waist and stretching his hamstrings. Sam felt his face heat up and shut his mouth, turning around to do his own stretches while he tried to wake up.

“It’s a pride thing, you’re too young to understand.” Dean cackled and Sam felt his face flush with indignation. Anytime Dean didn’t feel like explaining something, that was his answer and he knew it infuriated Sam.

“You wanna make me regret it? You gotta catch me.” Dean offered and was out the door, jogging over the rough, uncleared terrain till he hit the treeline and vanished. Sam cursed and followed him out.

Dean led Sam on a merry chase for long enough that Sam hoped Dean had his compass on him. The sun was much higher in the sky when Sam finally managed to catch Dean than when they’d started, and both were sweaty and dirty from running through the woods. However, by silent decision, they kept walking around the woods for a while, both of them enjoying the fresh air and occasional sunlight too much to stop. 

At one point they passed a clearing, at first both of them ignoring it totally in favor of bounding from giant tree root to giant tree root in a game they’d made up years ago when they’d been sent out to work on nature skills. But they passed another opening in the trees and Sam felt all the hair on his arms stand up as he shivered.

“Dean, wait.” He whispered, knowing Dean would hear him without having to raise his voice. Dean jumped back to him and stopped, both of them peering into the clearing. Dean gestured for Sam’s attention silently and Sam’s eyes followed where Dean was holding his arm next to Sam’s, showing that his hair was on end as well. Sam pantomimed a question in their silent shorthand and Dean shook his head, and replied:  _ Don’t go into the clearing, but get closer. _

Silently, they both crept closer to the gap in the trees and the clearing. 

It was a small cleared area with a small stone hut in the middle of it. The hut didn’t look large enough for even one of them to stand up straight in. As they watched they noticed someone enter the clearing from the opposite side. The person didn’t look around, just moved straight for the side of the hut that they couldn't see; Sam assumed that was where the door was. Before the person vanished inside they jerked their head around and ended up looking right at the gap where Sam and Dean were standing. They both jerked back but knew that unless the person could see in the dark, there was no way that the odd person could spot Sam and Dean in the shadows.

Sam felt the strongest compulsion to walk over to the person. To enter the hut and go down, deep down into the earth. He was shaken out of his near trance by Dean’s hand on his arm and Dean’s harsh whisper in his ear.

“Lets get outta here Sammy,” Dean breathed and Sam nodded his head. They moved slowly for a little while, staying as quiet as they could while the trees surrounding the clearing were still in sight. As soon as they were far enough away that neither could see the clearing anymore, both Sam and Dean put on a burst of speed and ran, Dean taking the lead, and didn’t stop until they were back at their own cabin. They both stumbled inside and shut the door behind them, breathing hard and sweating.

“What was that?” Sam heard himself ask between gasping breaths. HIs chest was heaving and he couldn’t understand why he felt so winded before he realized he’d slowed his breathing during the run back so he could be quieter.

“Heads up” Dean yelled and Sam looked up just in time to catch the bottle of water Dean threw at his head. He chugged it down in three big gulps and then allowed himself to slide to the floor. His muscles felt pleasantly sore, as was normal after a good run, but his breathing was still near to hyperventilating.

“Sammy can you calm down for me? You’re freaking me out. In 1-2-3-4-5 and hold 1-2-3 and out 1-2-3-4-5 and hold 1-2-3.” With Dean’s guidance Sam was able to slow his breathing back to normal but as soon as he could breathe properly he repeated his question.

“I dunno Sammy.” Dean fiddled with his own bottle of water and looked Sam in the eye. “That place, it felt… holy? Like, it didn’t look like any kinda church I ever heard of but it felt….” Dean trailed off but Sam knew what he was trying to explain and didn’t need him to say any more. He’d felt it too.

“Let’s stay away from it.” Sam asked; pleaded really. He was hoping the worst part of this week would be the boredom, he didn’t want it to be a hunt.

“I think we should contact Dad.” Dean replied, eyes down and to the side. He knew how upset it would make Sam to turn it into a hunt.

“We have nothing to tell him. What are we gonna say  _ Dad, we were in the woods for survival training and PT this morning and saw a stone shack in a clearing and we both thought it was weird _ . No, Dean, that’s not gonna fly. Plus he’s busy. Plus, I bet you’d have to drive all the way to where he is on the coast before you got enough bars to even make a call.” Sam waved his hand at the satellite-mostly-useless-unless-they-were-in-the-middle-of-a-city Nokia phone in Dean’s hand and Dean pursed his lips and looked down at it, like he knew Sam was right.

“You know I’m right. Let’s just do something else for today. Please Dee?” Sam tried never to abuse the power of his puppy-dog eyes, especially with his brother, but sometimes it was necessary. Keeping this week of rural boredom from turning into an underequipped hunt was worth it.

“Fine. But I’m taking the first shower and if I use all the water i’m not helping you haul anymore to the camp shower.” Sam smiled and held out his hand and Dean took it.

“Fine by me. Go now, you stink.” Sam scrunched his nose and waved a hand in front of it and was unable to block the shove that sent him sprawling across the floor.

He laughed and reached over to his bag to pull out one of the books that he always carried around with them when he had rare downtime. He kicked off his running shoes and sprawled in the patch of sunlight let in from the front window as Dean bustled around the room getting his toiletries and clean clothes.

The rest of the day and into the evening were quiet and boring. Sam finished his book and pulled another out of his bag, very much not watching Dean sharpen his knives, clean his guns, or play game after game of solitaire with the battered deck of cards that was always on hand. Nothing interesting about that at all, he tried and failed to convince himself.

Around three am, both Sam and Dean sat up from their makeshift bed, sweating and breathing heavy. Neither of them said a word as they tried to slow their breathing. They held eye contact until both were breathing normally again then, as one, each got up to get the lanterns from the other side of the room and turn them both on, bright as they would go. They needed to chase some of the darkness away.

Dean dealt the battered playing cards and Sam grabbed two bottles of water as they gathered themselves together. It was about fifteen minutes after they’d woken up that Sam spoke up. 

“Should we talk about it?” 

It being the dream he knew they’d shared. 

Dean kept his eyes down on his cards and Sam was left feeling like he was talking to the top of Dean’s head. 

“No. Not… not right now. Not ‘til the sun comes up.” Dean paused and shivered, his whole body moving with it. “It’s your turn.” He nudged quietly and Sam nodded, trying to recall what game they were even playing.

“Rummy,” Dean offered and Sam nodded, looking down at his hand again and reordering them for Rummy. Sometime during the third hand, Sam’s eyes felt heavy and he slipped down, laying on his side as he kept playing. When the sun came up both he and Dean were back to sleep, cards scattered around them and lanterns burning bright.

“Are we gonna talk about it?” Sam panted as he jogged next to Dean. Their broken night left them with no choice but to do their PT when they woke up again at 10am. Neither of them was willing to even run the risk of running near the clearing again, so they decided to jog along the side of the road. It was hot and Sam had sweated through his shirt before they’d gone even half mile up the dirt road. He could feel the sweat and dirt sticking to him.

“Sammy.” Dean huffed out, swinging his head to the side to try and catch Sam’s eye. “Not… not right now, okay.” Sam nodded and closed his mouth.

He wanted to talk about it because he couldn’t stop thinking about it. How simple it seemed. Go back to the clearing. Enter the stone hut. Descend down the carved steps into the underground chamber. From there it was all a feeling of peace and bliss and simplicity. After they descended into the chamber there would be no more pain, no more suffering, no more choices, no more loneliness.

Thinking about the Stanford acceptance letter at the bottom of his duffle, hidden inside the torn out binding of the Hobbit, the idea of no more pain, no more decisions, no more loneliness was so appealing. 

“EARTH TO SAMMY?” Dean was yelling across the road at him. Somehow, while Sam’s mind wandered, he’d started running down the middle of the road instead of on the edge. He looked over at Dean and angled his steps until they were side-by-side again.

“What the hell Sam?” Dean asked, his breath harsh as he nudged Sam into turning around and staying on the side of Dean that was away from the road.

“Nothin, just thinkin.” Sam replied, well aware that both of them knew he was lying.

They ran their full loop and without discussion Sam let Dean take the first shower. 

Sam sat himself down just inside the cottage facing out the back door towards the shower. He couldn’t see anything, not really. The flash of a bare forearm. The ripple of water-soaked back muscles. The barest hint of a butt-cheek. Sam wanted so badly sometimes that it hurt. Sometimes he clenched and ground his teeth together to try and rid himself of the want. And when that didn’t work, he indulged in small ways, just like this. He watched. He waited his turn in the shower. He closed his eyes and let himself indulge when he was alone.

“Sammy. Sammy. SAMMY!” Sam opened his eyes to Dean in his face, yelling. Sam blinked and wrinkled his nose at being interrupted.

“Whazza prob’lm?” He slurred and felt himself waver on his feet. Dean’s arms came up and wrapped around him, lowering him to the ground.

“How’d I get here?” Sam looked around to see that they were back in the woods, not far from the clearing.   
“I dunno Sammy, I was fucking hoping that you could tell me? Scared the shit outta me. Came inside from my shower and you were just fuckin’ GONE, front door open and no trace of you.” Dean pulled back and ran his hands through his hair. “Then when I did manage to track you, cause whatever mental state you were in made you about as graceful as a bull moose in mating season, you were just… blank. I was talking to you and nothing.” Dean was working himself up into a rage.

“Dean I’m sorry I don’t know what happened but I didnt--” Dean made a sharp cutting motion with his hand in the air and Sam cut himself off mid-ramble. Now that he was aware again he could feel himself trembling. He didn’t know what had come over him and it was terrifying how easily and how quickly it happened. He looked down and his hands were shaking and to his horror his eyes filled with tears. He tried to hide his face, but Dean was enraged and wouldn’t let him hang his head.

All Dean’s anger seemed to vanish when he laid his eyes on Sam’s tear stained face. His shoulders dropped and the redness fled his cheeks, to be replaced with the white of panic. Dean took a few visible breaths then put both hands on Sam’s shoulders.

“Sammy, I’m not gonna let anything happen to you. You know that, don’t you buddy?” Sam forced himself to nod but he didn’t believe it and they both knew it. SAm could tell Dean was frustrated that Sam didn’t believe him but there was something else going on, something that Dean could not control.

Dean didn’t move more than an arms length away from Sam for the rest of the day. He stood outside the shower when they made it back to the cabin, he hovered as Sam got dressed and then they spent the rest of what was left of daylight inside the small, one-room cabin. About dusk, Dean lifted his head and scanned over the provisions on the counter.

“C’mon. We gotta head back down to the general store. We’ll be getting back after full-dark but should be okay as long as we leave a lantern on.” Sam flipped on the battery operated lantern and went to pull on his shoes but the left one felt a little heavy. He peered inside and couldn’t see anything so he tipped it over and a snake fell out onto the floor and towards the door.

“HOLY FUCK, KILL IT” Dean screamed and Sam couldn’t stop himself from laughing as he nudged the door open and let it out into the night.

“Just a little garter snake dude. Nothing to be scared of. C’mon.” Sam calmly checked his right shoe then pulled them both on and nudged Dean towards the car. As he was climbing into the car, Sam looked towards the treeline and thought he saw a couple of snakes in the grass, enjoying the last of the day’s sun, but he thought about Dean’s reaction and didn’t mention it. They were halfway to the store when he couldn’t stop himself anymore.

“You’re scared of snakes?” Sam asked, softly, not wanting to make it seem like he was making fun.

“No. I’m not, pssssh, I’m not scared of… okay I just don’t like em, okay? They’re all slithery and the way they move and sneak up on you and then the biting… just. Gimme a fuckin goul over a snake.” They pulled into the parking space in front of the store and Sam turned to stare at his brother as the car cooled and ticked.

“What? Plenty of people don’t like snakes. Least I’m not scared of clowns.” Dean made a face and Sam scrunched his nose up.

“Just… good to know that my badass big brother is human too. Flaws are a good thing.” With that, Sam got out of the car but something caught his eye before he made it into the store. He nonchalantly moved around the car to where Dean was standing. 

“Look.” He whispered and cut his eyes across the street. There were two people, a man and a woman, making their way along the sidewalk but something was wrong with both of them. Neither of them moved their arms at all, four arms just dangling off shoulders as they walked like dead weight, and their legs moved too mechanically to be casual. It was as if someone saw how people should walk based on their anatomy but still got it wrong. It was too much like stop-motion animation. Sam and Dean watched them until they turned up a pathway towards one of the houses. 

“First people we’ve seen since we got to this town and they must be trippin’ balls to act like that. Maybe what I heard is right, maybe Maine is where all the hippies came to die,” Dean joked and Sam shoved at his shoulder, pushing himself off the car and heading towards the store. Sam glanced left and right before he crossed the sideway, a long ingrained habit, and saw two more snakes near the corner of the building, but these ones didn’t look like common little garter snakes. One of them had a bulbous head like a venomous snake. Sam opened the door to the store and ushered Dean in first but by the time Dean passed him and he looked back, the snakes were gone.

“What is with you right now?” Dean hissed at him and Sam shrugged.    
“I dunno. I’m seeing things. Let’s just get the stuff and head home.” Sam didn’t want to get snippy with Dean, not when they’d been getting along so well for two whole days, but he suddenly wished Dean would just get off his back.

Being around his brother was hard enough at the best of times, without Dean’s hovering. Sam rolled his shoulders and shoved his way past Dean down the cereal aisle, ignoring his brother’s attempts at dragging him back into a conversation he didn’t want to have. He filled his arms with non-perishables and grabbed a final box of fruit loops as an indulgence that he knew Dean would allow. Sam stomped out of the aisle and found Dean, hiding behind the end of one of the aisles, looking at the cash register.

“It’s the guy. From the woods.” Sam looked over at the register and felt a shock of recognition when he realized it was the guy they’d seen descending into the stone hut. As Sam watched, the man’s neck started to turn until his dead-eyed face was looking right into Sam’s eyes. Sam nearly dropped everything in his hands but held on tight.

Spotted now, they had no choice but to head up to the counter. Sam dropped everything on the counter and stepped back, waiting as the man slowly moved to grab each item one by one and check the prices. There was no scanner,, it was manual and the man, Larry based on his nametag, was moving in a way that made it look like his arms hurt to move.

Up close, Sam could see that Larry’s hair was dirty and lank, his skin wan and bloated, his eyes sunken and the bags underneath them purple. If he hadn’t been moving Sam would have thought that he was looking at a corpse.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Larry’s head shot up faster than Sam would have thought he could move so that he could look Sam in the eye. With the direct eye contact Sam noticed the milky-blue eyes that gave him even more of a feeling of looking at a dead person. Sam gasped and stumbled backwards.

“I’ll, I'm just gonna, I’ll wait in the car,” he stammered to Dean and headed back out the door as fast as his too-long legs would take him. He slammed the passenger side door behind him and leaned across the bench seat to roll up the drivers side window that Dean always left down, like he was daring someone to try and steal his car. Sam shook his head to try and clear it of weird thoughts. 

He closed his eyes and lay his head back against the headrest. As he tried to slow his breathing, he heard a rhythmic sound, like fingers dragging across leather. He matched his breathing to it and it helped. He was about to drift off when the sound stopped and he felt something heavy on his shoulder.

Sam tried to open his eyes but he couldn’t. He felt the weight of something moving across his shoulder, to his collarbone, to his neck. He could feel the scales as they scraped across the thin skin of his throat. Not choking, not constricting, almost as though it were holding and comforting him. He let himself fall into the embrace of the serpent around his neck. 

______________________________________________________

Dean kept his eyes on Sam until he saw the Impala passenger side door open and shut. It was too dark outside now to see inside the car, even through the large front window. Reluctantly, he slid his eyes away from the car and back to the half-dead clerk in front of him. He couldn’t help but glare as he watched  _ LARRY _ , move slowly enough to set his eye twitching. 

“Listen, Larry, it’s getting dark and my little brother is having some sort of temper tantrum in my car and I gotta get him back to camp. He probably needs some food which, you know, is right here. I'm just waiting for you to finish ringing me up and take my money.” Dean was working himself up into a tizzy, just as bad as one of Sam’s when Larry's head shot up and Dean felt all his words dry up.

“Dean Winchester.” Larry’s voice was lower than Dean expected it to be, the timbre of it shooting through him and settling in his guts in the most unpleasant way. Once Dean recognized that Larry had stopped speaking and the silence between them had resumed, he finally understood what had been said.

“How do you know my name?” He tapered off as Larry stood as though he was being pulled upwards on marionette strings.

“I know all humans on this land. I know you, your father, and your brother.” Dean craned his neck around to squint at his car but, as just a few moments before, he couldn’t see inside. He narrowed his eyes at Larry and opened his mouth to give his customary ‘don’t touch my brother or I’ll kill you’ speech when Larry or, as he suspected whomever was speaking through Larry, started talking again.

“I have your brother, Dean Winchester. You know where I am. Come to me and I may allow you both to live. Come quickly.” Larry stopped speaking and collapsed onto the floor, his head smashing into the counter on the way down but Dean didn’t stop to check on him, he was already halfway out the door.

It felt like he flew to the door of the car and threw it open, peering inside even though he already knew what he was going to see. He immediately recoiled and assessed: he thought he knew what he was going to see. The car was empty of Sam, that was true, but there was a wiggling, slithering pile of snakes on the passenger side of the bench seat. On the one hand, Sam was in trouble, and standing near the car like a little bitch because of a few snakes was absolutely intolerable. On the other hand, there was a writhing pile of snakes on the seat of his car and no separation between where he needed to sit and where they were. And he knew that he could crash the car if even one of them touched him as he drove.

“Look. I get it. Snakes. Snake monster. Mind reading, mind controlling snake monster in the tiny stone hut in the creepy clearing in the woods. I understand all of this. But you’re gonna have to get out of my car, I’m not driving with you in the car.” He felt like an idiot, not only was he wasting time but he was talking to a pile of snakes. However, when he stepped back away from the door, the pile began to unravel and snakes began to slither across the seat and out the door until they were all on the ground and heading away from him. 

Dean took a couple of deep breaths and really quickly shone his flashlight through the interior of the car. One of the slithery assholes had shed in his car but there were no  _ live _ snakes left. He climbed in and peeled out of the parking lot.

“How the fuck am I gonna fight a snake monster? What the fuck snake monsters are there?” Dean rambled aloud as he careened down the dirt road that dead-ended at the cabin. He assumed there was no quicker way to get to the clearing than the way they’d found the day before so he would change into his hiking boots, grab a lantern and both of their guns and head out. 

To pass the intolerable time hiking from their cabin to the clearing, Dean began to recite any kind of snake monster or snake related monster and how to kill it.

“Medusa, show her her own reflection? Cut off her head? Fuck, I can’t even remember that.” He shook his head and marched on, lantern held high in front of him. He could hear, practically feel, all of the snakes in the woods on either side of him but they were, oddly, keeping their distance.

“Uhh.. okay… Medusa. What else? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I can’t think of anything else. There’s like the Norse snake god and a native american snake god and FUCK. I don’t know how to fight a god, let alone kill one. Why the fuck didn’t we get out of town and call dad? Why us?” He stopped at the edge of the clearing and peered through the trees at the small stone hut. The cleaning was suspiciously well-lit for it being nearly midnight, far as Dean could figure. It wasn’t a church. It wasn’t not holy ground, as far as Dean could tell, but the whole area had an aura of worshipfulness to it. 

Muttering to himself the whole time, Dean took a fortifying breath, held his lantern high, and marched across the clearing. He could hear the snakes that surrounded him more clearly now but he kept his head high and his eyes focused on the stone hut ahead of him. He shuffled to the side to see the open archway and finally looked down upon the steps that he knew were there. 

The passageway down was so narrow and dark it seemed to swallow the light from Dean’s lantern. He took a breath and put one foot on the first step, making sure it was flat and down before shifting. The steps were rounded with age and any signs that they were once cut into their shape had long been worn away with use.

He descended for what felt like a long time. Ahead he could hear the gentle lapping of water against stone and the echoing sound of his own footsteps, but not much more. Every time he started to doubt himself, every time he thought maybe he got it wrong and this wasn’t where Sam had been taken, he heard the sounds of snakes slithering all around him. He never saw them, only heard them.

Finally, Dean came to the bottom of the stairs. There was a long passageway with no branches or turns and so he followed it, knowing that eventually he would find his brother and eventually they would get out of there together. No snake charmer monster was going to take Sammy away from him. At the end of the passageway, he could see an archway opening into a chamber wan light emerging and the sound of water becoming louder with each step. Dean took another fortifying breath, trying to ignore the smell and taste of long-stale underground air, squared his shoulders, and marched through.

“Holy fuck.” Dean thought he spoke softly but the stone-walled chamber amplified and echoed it back to him at maximum volume. 

Sam was directly across from him, eyes closed, with snakes acting as binds around his wrists, biceps and nauseatingly, his throat. He was sitting without struggling, or moving much at all and Dean wanted to shoot the snakes and take Sam away from this place forever.

However.

Between him and Sam was a sunken pool filled with clear, clean-looking water. And more snakes than Dean had ever seen or ever wanted to see. They were writhing over the top of each other and around each other and all tangled together, some of them large enough that he could hardly tell where one snake began and the next snake ended. In the very center of the pool there was the vague shape of a head and face. There was nothing human about it , or even snake-like, but Dean instinctively knew it was a head and it was the reason he was here.

“You may address me as Zhibrass of Vh’uzh’zha, Dean Winchester.” The head spoke to him and Dean was reminded of Larry at the convenience store, the way the voice resonated through his whole body and settled in his guts. Dean took a step forward and stopped abruptly, feeling the absolute need to put down all the weapons on him.

He pulled out both his and Sam’s guns, the three knives he always carried, the mag-lite flashlight and the propane lantern, setting it all on the shiny-wet stone floor to either side of him and stepping away from it all until he was at the pool's edge. He looked down in a daze and saw tiny green and white snakes writhing over the tips of his hiking boots.

“You do not like my friends, Dean Winchester?” Dean lifted his head to look at Zhibrass again and shook his head.

“Snakes make me uncomfortable,” he replied, his voice sounding dead and without inflection. In his head, Dean knew everything was wrong but he couldn’t do anything to change or stop it. He waited to be addressed again.

“I have been here since time on your planet began. I saw the first organisms divide and grow. I saw the fish grow legs and crawl from the water. I saw the giant bird lizards your kind calls dinosaurs grow and die, grow and die. I have seen terrible, boiling heat. I have lived through freezing, painful cold.” 

Dean tilted his head, fascinated and horrified all at once and unable to even show it in an expression on his face, let alone open his mouth and reply.

“I claimed this land right here before the great land split and migration. I control who lives on my land. I control who dies on this land.” Zhibrass moved so that it’s head was blocking Dean’s view of Sam. Internally, Dean screamed. Externally, he listened.

“I have seen your kind before Dean Winchester. Hunters. Silly little humans trying to eradicate anything so-called supernatural. Well, let me tell you something.” Zhibrass moved closer and Dean could smell it’s rank breath as it wafted over his face, but he couldn’t even wrinkle his nose.

“The so-called supernatural has been here longer than you have, silly human. So you can try, but you will not succeed.”

It moved back and away from Dean, quicker than he could blink.

“This land and these people are MINE, Dean Winchester. You can not kill me. You can not even hurt me, and you know these things to be true. Your puny weapons are child’s toys to me.”

Zhibrass moved to the side and Dean was able to see that there was a sort of locomotion of snakes transporting Sam across the pool to where he stood. He knelt down and grabbed at Sam’s shoulder as soon as he could reach and pulled his baby brother into his arms, where he belonged. 

Restored of the ability to move,the most that Dean could do was pull Sam further into his lap and brush his floppy bangs out of his face. Dean stroked his fingers across Sam’s forehead and waited for Sam’s eyes to open.

“Still here with me little brother?” He asked, wanting to dip his head down and press their lips together, but he couldn’t. He wouldn’t let that be their first kiss. He had enough control for that. Sam nodded, reaching up to trail his fingertips down the side of Dean’s face.

Dean pulled his eyes away from Sam’s perfect face and looked up to see that Zhibrass was hovering over them, close enough that it could see the flecks of gold in Sam’s eyes just as Dean could.

“Leave this place, Dean Winchester. Never come back. Tell any hunters you like to stay away. I find you and your brother to be entertaining, but I doubt that I would feel that way about any other of your kind. Take your weapons and go. You have until sunrise to be off my land.” Zhibrass moved back and sunk down into its pile of snakes.

“Better hurry.”

Zhibrass didn’t possess the ability to smile, or give it’s voice a tone, nonetheless Dean detected mocking in it’s parting words. He threw Sam’s arm around his shoulders and tucked his little brother close to his side, turned and walked as fast as he could. BY the time they reached the stone stairs, Sam was moving completely under his own power, but Dean still made him ascend the stairs first in case he fell.

They made it to the cabin when it was still dark but they could both sense that the sun was coming and neither had any idea of how far Zhibrass’ land spread. By unspoken agreement, they grabbed everything they could from the cabin and simply threw it into the back of the Impala to be sorted later. They were on the road out of town and towards the coast within ten minutes.

“Dean….” Sam started but didn’t go on. Unwilling to take his eyes off the road or his foot off the gas, Dean lifted his right arm and let Sam tuck himself under it. Dean saw the sign stating ‘Now Leaving Penobscot County’ and looked in his rearview. Maybe it was his overtired and scared brain but he swore that he saw snakes covering the road behind them as far as he could see. 

They crossed the county line as the first rays of sunlight hit the Impala’s hood.


End file.
